


Best Bard Basically Ever

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, eighth bird johann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 21:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15849984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Johann was the best bard basically ever, but even still there weren't a lot of job opportunities out there for bards nowadays. It made sense to try and get something stable with the IPRE, and it made sense that he'd managed to land the job. He was after all, real fucking good at the bard thing. Still, this hadn't been his passion or anything like that.It didn't seem like that mattered though. Whether he cared or not, he was stuck in this destiny now.





	Best Bard Basically Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkrystalSky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkrystalSky/gifts).



The thing was, Johann was pretty much the greatest violinist and bard basically ever. Which was cool and all, but despite that there still weren’t exactly a lot of job opportunity for bards nowadays. So it made sense to try for the IPRE, and it made sense that he managed to get in.

It wasn’t like, his passion though. In the end all he wanted was to make music and for people to hear it. Joining the institute was a good way to get stable enough to be able to do that. He guessed it was interesting, but he wouldn’t be horribly depressed if he never got to see outside of the planar system.

He did get to leave the planer system though, and then whether this was his passion or not didn’t matter, because there was no going back home. There was no going back at all, because every world they got to would be gone in some way or another in a year. Which that  _ was _ kinda horribly depressing he supposed.

There wasn’t much he could do about that in the end, besides try and help gather the light as much as possible. There wasn’t much he could do once they  _ had _ the light, since he wasn’t like, a scientist. He was just a bard. A really fucking good bard, but still just a bard.

Sure, he guessed Merle had said that the hunger used to only be one guy named John. Sure Johann was good, but he didn’t think he was influence an entire plane of existence good. At least not yet, anyway.

So there wasn’t much he could do to help them take down the hunger. All he could do was bolster the rest of them with a few notes on his violin or a tune plucked on his harp. Sometimes he could convince the right person that they weren’t assholes but that was about as far as his skills went.

Which was fine. He’d never asked to be a part of this whole saving the world thing. Mostly he was just trying to die as little as possible.

He couldn’t do much, so whenever they lost a world it never felt like it was on him. He was doing the best he could, but no one was expecting him to have the power to save a whole plane.

At least, not until Legato.

Plan A was on him. He was the music guy. He was the best musician in their home plane and he’d only gotten better in the half century they’d been traveling. He could submit something to the mountain, and if it was accepted maybe they would let him inside.

So he looked through all of the music he’d written over the decades. It took two weeks before he finally managed to decide which was the best, which one he felt he could submit to the mountain. It was a piece simply titled ‘The Hunger.’

He played it for the mountain, and there was a terrifying moment afterwards when the sheet music had been consumed where he couldn’t remember it.

And then it was projected throughout every being in this entire planar system. Johann could safely say in that moment that he’d never been happier in his entire life.

So when he wasn’t able to go into the mountain after the performance, it was disappointing. Real fucking disappointing. He was good enough to get accepted, but there was still something missing.

They needed a new plan. They were all going to try to submit works now, on the chance that it would allow one of them in. A scatter shot approach like that was better than nothing.

Johann worked on something new instead, spent months on it. He submitted it along with everyone else, and felt that same immediate rush of relief and joy when it was broadcast back once again.

And once again, none of them were allowed into the mountain.

Or at least that’s what they thought until Magnus came back and explained that he got inside and the light wasn’t there. They had barely a few weeks left in this plane, and no leads to go off of.

When they left that plane, Magnus bringing one of those weird jellyfish creatures with them, it wasn’t a surprise that it got consumed. They didn’t have enough time to search when they finally figured out the light wasn’t where they thought. If Johann had managed to create something good enough to let him in the first time, they could’ve avoided that.

He’d feed songs to Fisher every once and a while after that. They were never projected back like they were in Legato. Johann wasn’t sure if he didn’t like them enough, or if he couldn’t anymore. The little guy certainly seemed happy when he fed him though, so he kinda hoped it was that he couldn’t. Maybe it had been something about the plane he originated in that caused it, or he wasn’t strong enough to project across a whole plane on his own. Whichever one it was didn’t really matter in the long run.

There was something about losing the Legato Conservatory that hurt more than he expected though. More than the fact that he could have been the one to save it. That world had pretty much been the thing he always wanted, a world where everyone was able to hear his music. A place where he could be remembered.

But now it was gone, and the only thing that happened to his music when he fed it to Fisher was forgetting it forever.

It didn’t seem like there would ever be an end to all of this running and fighting and forgetting. Until suddenly there was.

They had a plan, and Johann had been unsure of it at first. He didn’t know if unleashing a bunch of super powerful artifacts in the world was a good idea, because it didn’t sound like one. Lucretia’s plan seemed safer, but he wasn’t a wizard. If Lup and Barry and the rest of them all thought it would  _ definitely _ destroy the world instead of just  _ mostly _ destroying the world, he’d go along with it.

He weaved his portion of the light into a harp, and he hoped people would use it to inspire. They’d all for the most part been trying to think of the ways their creations could be used for good. Not that it seemed to matter once they put them out into the world. They never saw anyone try to use the relics the way they hoped.

Instead of inspiration, Johann only ever saw his relic used to control. Countless instances of minds warped and contorted with music, unable to act on their own. Not exactly what he’d had in mind when he created it.

Still, he guessed it worked enough, because the world didn’t technically end. The hunger never came and it seemed like in a way, they won. They weren’t running anymore, and Johann didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. After 100 years stuck in a destiny he never asked for, and left with a victory that didn’t feel like one at all, he felt lost.

And then Lup disappeared, and it seemed like none of them had any sort of direction after that.

It was about four months after Lup disappeared now. Johann was sitting in the kitchen, fiddling with his harp absently. There wasn’t a lot to do these days besides wait on more news about the relics and see if Taako and Barry managed to find any new leads on Lup.

He was a little surprised when Lucretia came into the room. She didn’t say anything to him at first, instead looking through the cabinets for a bit before finally getting herself a glass of water. It was kinda hard to tell what she was thinking, she’d been pretty closed off recently.

“Hey, how’s it hanging?” he asked finally, breaking the silence. She jolted some, like she’d been so deep in thought she’d forgotten he was there.

“I honestly don’t know anymore,” she said quietly. Johann nodded, plucking a few more notes on his harp.

“Yeah, shit’s pretty fucked,” he agreed, sighing heavily. There wasn’t much point in complaining, since there wasn’t anything he could do about it. “Do you think we made the right choice?” he asked, and when he looked back over at Lucretia her face was hard.

“No, I don’t think we did,” she said, and that made sense. Of course she was still on board with her plan.

“Yeah, I mean, I wanted to try your thing, but we’re not the science people here so I figured it would be better to listen to them,” he said. Looking out the kitchen door he could see where Davenport and Merle were playing cards. He wasn’t sure where the other three were but he figured they were around somewhere.

“I understand, it means a lot to me that you were behind my plan at all,” Lucretia said.

“Sure, I guess it doesn’t matter much now, since there’s like, not really anything we can do about it. Like, this plan worked technically, and so we can’t leave,” he sighed. They were both quiet for a long while, and Johann kind of expected Lucretia to go off to her room again. She’d spent a lot of time alone in there since Lup disappeared, and he couldn’t blame her for that.

“Johann… she said finally, and he looked up from where he’d been messing with his harp once again. “If we could do it again, do you think it would be worth the risk?” she asked.

Johann frowned, thinking the question over. He wasn’t sure why she was asking him, since they couldn’t do that. Even still he thought the question over like it was serious, because Lucretia sure sounded like she was.

“I guess so. I’m not really sure what cutting bonds off like that would do, but it’s gotta be better than this, right?” he said, and she nodded slowly.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” she said, putting her glass of water down. From the looks of it, she hadn’t actually drank anything. “Thank you for talking with me Johann,” she said, and he just nodded.

“Sure thing Luce,” he said, turning back to his harp. She left the kitchen after that, and it was quiet for a while, broken only by the sound of the occasional harp pluck here and there.

Eventually Magnus came out, and he was holding another carved wooden duck. There were a million of those things scattered around the ship, but they were pretty cute. Fisher liked them, so they didn’t hurt to have around.

“Hey, have you seen Lucretia around today?” Magnus asked, and Johann nodded.

“Yeah, she was actually out here a bit ago. Pretty sure she went back to her room though,” he said, and Magnus flashed a smile at him.

“Thanks a bunch Johann,” he said, rushing off. It was quiet again, and Johann could hear Merle and Davenport talking, but he wasn’t paying attention to what it was about. Instead he was slowly playing the song he’d written during the year at the Legato Conservatory. The song that despite months and months of working on it, hadn’t been enough to let him in.

Slowly, his fingers stilled on the harp, unable to keep playing because he couldn’t- he didn’t remember the song he was trying to play. It’d just been in his head, but now he couldn’t remember writing it, or practicing it or what he was doing here at all.

Standing up, his harp fell to the ground, and he didn’t bother to look to see if it was broken or not. He didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know anything at all.

The only thing he knew for sure in that moment was that his name was Johann, and he was the best bard basically ever.

**Author's Note:**

> another request for darkrystalsky! this was my first time writing from Johann's POV and i hope i did a decent job, he's a surprisingly hard character to get into the head of. I love 8th bird AUs tho so this was a lot of fun to write. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy~


End file.
